Easter Sunday evening - a bit of decent theology to end this series...

Easter Sunday evening is here - alleluia!

I've had a good day - encouraging fun all age worships in two places this morning and a reflective service tonight. I gave tonight's congregation some Jurgen Moltmann - my favourite theologian. This extract from "Power to the Powerless" says everything for me there is to say about today. Goodnight dear readers, I might surface sometime on Tuesday :)

The Easter faith recognizes that the raising of the crucified Christ from the dead provides the great alternative to this world of death. This faith sees the raising of Christ as God’s protest against death, and against all the people who work for death; for the Easter faith recognizes God’s passion for the life of the person who is threatened by death and with death. And faith participates in this process of love by getting up out of the apathy of misery and out of the cynicism of prosperity, and fighting against death’s accomplices, here and now, in this life.

Weary Christians have often enough deleted this critical and liberating power from Easter. Their faith has then degenerated into the confident belief in certain facts, and a poverty-stricken hope for the next world, as if death were nothing but a fate we meet with at the end of life. But death is an evil power now, in life’s very midst. It is the economic death of the person we allow to starve; the political death of the people who are oppressed; the social death of the handicapped; the noisy death that strikes through napalm bombs and torture; and the soundless death of the apathetic soul.

The resurrection faith is not proved true by means of historical evidence, or only in the next world. It is proved here and now, through the courage for revolt, the protest against deadly powers, and the self-giving of men and women for the victory of life. It is impossible to talk convincingly about Christ’s resurrection without participating in the movement of the Spirit “who descends on all flesh” to quicken it. This movement of the Spirit is the divine “liberation movement,” for it is the process whereby the world is recreated.

So resurrection means rebirth out of impotence and indolence to “the living hope.” And today “living hope” means a passion for life, and a lived protest against death…

Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s rebellion. That rebellion is still going on in the Spirit of hope, and will be complete when, together with death, “every rule and every authority and power” is at last abolished (1 Corinthians 15:24).

The resurrection hope finds living expression in men and women when they protest against death and the slaves of death. But it lives from something different – from the superabundance of God’s future. Its freedom lives in resistance against all the outward and inward denials of life. But it does not live from this protest. It lives from joy in the coming victory of life. Protest and resistance are founded on this hope. Otherwise they degenerate into mere accusation and campaigns of revenge. But the greater hope has to take living form in this protest and resistance; otherwise it turns into religious seduction…

Easter is a feast, and it is as the feast of freedom that it is celebrated. For with Easter begins the  laughter of the redeemed, the dance of the liberated and the creative play of fantasy. From time immemorial Easter hymns have celebrated the victory of life by laughing at death, mocking at hell, and ridiculing the mighty ones who spread fear and terror around them.

Easter is the feast of freedom. It makes the life which it touches a festallife. “The risen Christ makes life a perpetual feast,” said Athanasius. But can the whole of life really be a feast? Even life’s dark side – death , guilt, senseless suffering? I think it can. Once we realize that the giver of this feast is the outcast, suffering, crucified Son of Man from Nazareth, then every “no” is absorbed into this profound “yes,” and is swallowed up in its victory.

Easter is at one and the same time God’s protest against death, and the feast of freedom from death. Anyone who fails to hold these two things together has failed to understand the resurrection of the Christ who was crucified. Resistance is the protest of those who hope, and hope is the feast of the people who resist.

Isn't that fab stuff? Glad I stayed awake for Moltmann in college! 

Holy Saturday - a day doing nothing except preparing...

Apart from a little trip out to the carnage of Sainsbury's to get some chocolate eggs for services tomorrow, and a lunch appointment for a 70th birthday party, I have done very little today except sleep, be in a daze, write two services, go back to sleep, nurse headache, write a third service and still be in a daze.

I wonder how disciples felt today after it all. Dazed, confused, overwhelmed, numb. They certainly were not expecting tomorrow as it turned out.

I hope for an Easter Day that is a surprise. Most of all tomorrow we celebrate a God who is ever unpredictable and who never says you cannot do that. A lesson for sleepy churches who are tired and who have always done it this way. I've had a long conversation with a minister tonight in despair about uncooperative people and everything being his fault. He said "people get the sort of church they deserve." I understand what he means. If we anticipate God, if we embrace what might be, we will be a fab place to be. If we moan, if we dare not, if we don't do resurrection, then Lord help us, we deserve to die.

Have a day of wonder my friends. Sleep well tonight!  

Good Friday - few words needed

I am just in from the procession of witness in Rye. It is a warm, sunny day here today. This is a picture from last year's, very different weather. I certainly regretted wearing my winter coat this year.

Good Friday for me is about knowing a God who knows what it is to suffer, to know I am never alone when hard things come, to know that in the end, and the end might be a long way away and I can't see it, all will be well. The Bishop of Leeds on Radio 2 this morning spoke of needing to stay with today for a while. To know a Jesus who hangs, is bloody, is vulnerable, is forsaken, helps me face things I find difficult. To know those things can be faced in partnership with a caring God is really good news today.

In my service before this at Calvert I invited people to stand round the cross as we sang My song is love unknown. A lot of people came forward. I love the hymn. It as one website puts it takes the singer from Palm Sunday through the crucifixion. But its purpose is not simply to retell the events of the Passion. From the beginning we find this is a love song - sung to the Saviour who demonstrated pure love, even to the "loveless" that they might be "lovely." 

I also used these words from George McLeod which say all there is to say today. Thank God for a day I remember a God who puts his body where his mouth is and calls me to make a difference in the world, not simply muck about in church! 

"I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the centre of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church.  I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on the town garbage dump, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.  It was the kind of place where cynics talk smut, thieves curse, soldiers gamble.  That’s where he died.  And that’s where we as Christians ought to be and what we as Christians ought to be about."

Maundy Thursday - Remembering but also lamenting

Maundy Thursday has always been special to me. A day we remember the many facets of Jesus, invitation, inclusiveness, breaking and pouring out, abandonment in the dark, the decree to live by a new commandment despite what we have done to him before.

I miss doing Tenebrae today - a moving service I especially enjoyed doing while in Oakham, the gradual extinguishing of light to symbolise the forsaking of Jesus by his friends. I miss leading my own service today. We join with the Anglicans today which is always good, but you know this year I struggled with it. We sang the mighty hymn " O thou who at thy eucharist didst pray that all thy church might be for ever one." But we weren't one - well at least not clergy wise. I did not share in the administration of the elements. It isn't allowed. It felt wrong tonight when we think about communion being all are welcome. I received it, it was good to kneel at the rail and receive it, but I wanted to be equal with my Anglican brothers (for they were both men)! The last time I was in this church I moaned - to be told it would be too difficult for me a Methodist to officiate. Don't get me started on the Anglican Methodist Covenant where it talks about full interchangeability of ministry!! (And was signed 12 years ago!) I am not having a go at my lovely Anglican colleagues who are brilliant and we have the closest ecumenical sharing I have ever had in our town - but.... tonight when we remember the gift of communion, something didn't feel right.

Maundy Thursday to me is about a radical new way of being as a community. Jesus offers God in an exciting, dynamic, amazing way. Part of himself is freely given no matter who you are. Stuff rules. Did Jesus really talk about canon law and CPD at the supper? I think not.
Earlier today the children at our fabulous Methodist school shared the story of this week with us in church. They remembered the events of Easter through painting the story. Some of the paintings were amazing. All the school were involved in the story as were parents. At lunchtime today I had a meal with our lovely Hollington family who eat together regularly. They are very kind to me as they tell me when it is on and like me to come even though I am not their minister. Lunch was sacramental, deep conversation. Can toad in the hole be sacramental?!?! I then went on to do my lovely colleague's ministerial development review where we reflected on how well things are going as she has settled in. People are warming to her investment in them, making them feel they matter.

Do this in remembrance of me. Maundy Thursday surely is about remembering the sort of Jesus the Church is meant to represent. So children, dinner, pastoral care show me today Jesus. Less so, the rules of the C of E! But let's not go there again.

Tomorrow we remember Jesus died for all, and took on the rubbish and the rules that inhibit. One day I think we will all see how silly some things we think matter, are.

 

The Wednesday of Holy Week - washing our hands of Jesus

I remember the story of the woman who went into a jewellers shop and asked for a cross. The jeweller brought out a tray of crucifixes. To which the woman said “Haven’t you got any without the little man on them?” We don’t like to ponder crucifixion for long. We know the end of the story – alleluia. But you cannot have resurrection without crucifixion. You cannot know life without knowing death. We need, however unpleasant it is, to remember what Jesus was facing in this week. Sleeping friends and corrupt authorities. Crucifixion remember, was a bloody, brutal and disgraceful form of Roman capital punishment. Victims were publicly beaten, tortured and humiliated, and forced to carry their cross to the place of execution. Nailed to it by their hands and feet, death was prolonged, horrible and excruciatingly painful.

The Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, all held positions of authority and power. The Sanhedrin, who were the supreme council of the Jewish people had tremendous religious authority, judicial power and social influence. They charged Jesus with blasphemy, condemned him to death and brought him before Pilate. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judaea under Emperor Tiberius. 

Pilate found Jesus innocent but sent him to Herod Antipas for another trial. Herod Antipas was the one who beheaded John the Baptist and stole his brother’s wife, Herodias. At the trial, Herod questioned Jesus but Jesus gave no answer. Mocked by Herod and the soldiers, Jesus was sent back to Pilate who had the authority to crucify him.

Pilate should have given Jesus his freedom but he was caught in a dilemma. It was the yearly custom that during the Passover the governor would release one prisoner. The people had the right of choice. Pilate offered them the choice of Jesus or Barabbas. In order to please the chief priests, rulers and the people he hoped to have Jesus punished and released. 

The crowd though disagreed and all shouted “release Barabbas for us.” Yielding to public pressure Pilate set Barabbas free and sentenced Jesus to be crucified. Not only does Jesus have sleeping friends, he is the victim of a power struggle, a miscarriage of justice, a weak ruler who washes his hands of it all and gives in to a braying mob. It is easy to have Jesus crucified. It is easy to hope he might go away. It is easy to be a church that just washes its hands of any challenge and just wants the nice bits of Jesus! In the world, it is easy to cause suffering by might or power or ideology. In the world it is easy to say we can’t have any of that here so we ban it or destroy it.  

 Pilate’s final question to the crowd is an important one: “What shall I do, then, with Jesus?”

There are only two possible answers. I can crown him or I can crucify him. There is nothing else, no middle ground.

 Pilate tried to wash his hands, but water won’t wash off that kind of blood. You can’t claim neutrality. Either join those who crucified him or join those who follow him.

What will we do with Jesus? 

Tuesday of Holy Week - Sleeping

Jesus struggles this week – and he struggles on his own. His disciples by this point in the week aren’t much use. They fall asleep. Jesus says exasperated “couldn’t you stay awake?” We all nod off. I’ve had to go to sunny Crawley for meetings with the District Chair yesterday and then back again for another one today. Yesterday driving home I felt my eyelids starting to droop- so I pulled over in the Ashdown Forest on the A22 and had half an hour’s doze. This afternoon I visited a Supernumerary and woke him up from his sleep! We nod off and miss important stuff sometimes – I have Match of the Day on on a Saturday night. I rarely see any matches!!! Jesus bids his friends to stay awake and keep watch to respond to the world. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, paraphrases a verse in Matthew 26 this way: "He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony." Suffering terrible sorrow and anxiety, he wants the disciples to keep watch. There was no requirement of courage at this point. He did not ask them to defend him or do anything heroic. He merely asked them to wait, to stand and keep vigil with him. They’d all said “we will die with you!” Moments later they are asleep.

I read a writing of John Wesley at 71- my sight is considerably better now, and my nerves firmer, than they were (30 years ago)..The grand cause is, the good pleasure of God, who doeth whatsoever pleaseth Him. 

The chief means are: 

1. My constantly rising at four, for about fifty years.

2. My generally preaching at five in the morning, one of the healthiest exercises in the world. 3. My never traveling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles in a year. All his preachers today are lazy compared to that agenda. Jesus simply wants some support in the darkness and finds none. The disciples are shattered – I think we would have been, but this story says to us rest when it is going well, you need your energy to respond to the hard times. We are asleep spiritually when we doze away and don’t respond when we need to respond.

We need to have something to say about the events in Belgium today, we need to be awake and alert to what is happening in our own country with benefit cuts, we need to be a church that is awake to the needs of people who we work with every day. We must not doze off and hope when we wake up the problem will have gone away. This story challenges me to respond with energy – – a constant challenge. We can sleep, we can ignore, but that isn’t the Christian call and the message of this week. I remember the lady who used to nod off and snore through the Sisterhood at Kinsbourne Green Methodist Church where I was lay worker from 1991 to 1994 – and the day she woke up with a start, looked at me and said “Good God, are you still speaking?”!!! 

This bit of Matthew’s Gospel is an intimate portrait of an honest and frightened Jesus who submits on his own forsaken to the will of God, and of us who aren’t up to staying with him, dozy, exhausted people who cannot stay the course. One Maundy Thursday in a previous appointment I asked a congregation to sit for an hour in silence after a Maundy Thursday supper to watch and pray and listen for God. No one lasted the hour. One of them only lasted three and a half minutes!

  

So as Holy Week proceeds, we ask for forgiveness. We ask Jesus to forgive us that we are not there. We are too tired. We ask Jesus to forgive us for leaving him to struggle alone. 

The Monday of Holy Week - overturning stuff

John McConnell is a bit too red sometimes - even for me! But today I admired that he had the courage to suggest the government might tear up their budget and start again. Of course we got the answer that the government are a one nation government and we are all in this together, but I am glad some politicians are standing up against measures that hit the worse off in our country, especially those who are unwell who have no choice but to be on benefits, and others trapped in poverty, many of whom I minister to here in Hastings.

It takes guts to say when everybody else says it is okay NO IT IS NOT! I was at a meeting this afternoon discussing an issue that doesn't seem to ever go away. I asked when it might be finally dealt with. The meeting was scared of confronting some behaviour which is just unacceptable.

Jesus was into speaking out - it got him in trouble. He was quick to condemn the injustices of his day, the religious elite who believed God was exclusive and a regime that ruled by force. John McConnell and Jeremy Corbyn are not to everyone's liking and may not ever be elected, but I think they have brought a certain decency to politics and a voice that suggests maybe it might be better done differently. (Conservative party readers will not agree with that, I know!) Speaking out in churches doesn't make you popular. By Friday it will have cost Jesus his life. But you know what, I'd rather speak out and be a bit bruised, then sit quiet and watch what needs to change from the sidelines.

Holy Week is a challenge to put our faith into action - even where it is really difficult and we are on our own making a stand.      

Blogging through Holy Week

I am going to try and blog every day through Holy Week. I've had a really good day today - a fabulous time at Battle, a Songs of Praise at Calvert and a lovely ecumenical service with my colleague Peggy at Trinity in Broad Oak. Some days I wish I could just prepare and lead worship - I love leading worship and being creative the best of all my duties. 

What do we make of Palm Sunday?

It’s no wonder in a few days Jesus is crucified as a criminal, a rabble rouser, a rebel political and theological. On Palm Sunday faith becomes public and it becomes political.

In Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, I see two agendas, the Kingdom and the Kingdom of Rome and a crowd, some welcome Jesus, perhaps some followers and admirers were there, others would have stood and laughed, others feared some sort of riot, others hoped this would be the day God was coming anew, one large, messy, boiling pot of emotions, which when they clashed would surely bring trouble.  

Crowds can be fun – they can be invigorating – like at the 02. I saw Whitney Houston at the 02, thousands of people singing her songs, it was one of the greatest nights of my life, until I went back for something better – Kylie – again, an amazing atmosphere. How do I know every Kylie song by heart? I am back at the 02 on the 4^th April for Adele – I can’t wait. Being in a big crowd united in being together to enjoy something. Football crowds can be the same – those Leicester City fans at Crystal Palace yesterday singing “we will not be moved” as they are five points clear at the top of the league. A year ago, only hardened supporters weren’t critical in the crowd when they were bottom. 

More seriously a crowd can be intimidating. Imagine being at a Trump rally – “we’re going to build that wall” and the crowd whoop loudly and those who disagree are removed. A crowd can support something, turn quickly or it can be a braying mob intent on destroying anything different offered to it.  

    

This is the day the church comes out of the closet, enters the city, and meets the crowd and the other ways of the world. This is the day the church distances itself from the state and from all worldly power. 

This is the day we enter Jerusalem. To show the world what God looks like, to show the world what love looks like, to show the world what it looks like to love your enemies, not only your enemies, but the immigrant and the alien, the stranger, and the other. 

In a manifestly violent world, it is now our turn to show the world, to show our friends, our families, our neighbours, what it looks like to follow the Prince of Peace, to turn the other cheek. To show the world what God looks like. 

It won't be easy. It will be costly. But it is the way of the cross. It’s easy to cheer today, it’s easy to do flowers next Sunday, it’s easy to miss out the cross. But doesn’t Christianity at its heart enter the world as it is, however hard and present Jesus to it? Have we become insular and scared? We are in good company, apart from a few women, most of his disciples on the road will have fled in fear before long locking themselves away.     

I like what Kathy Galloway writes about Palm Sunday:

“Palm Sunday is always happening, and we are always being confronted by the challenge of that different way of being; the way of peace that does not shrink from conflict but refuses violence, the way that does not theorise but engages with the real needs of suffering people, the way that sees the people who are overlooked and not counted, the way of self-offering.

As we walk with Jesus through Holy Week, let us pray for the courage to face these challenges, following faithfully in his way of compassion and solidarity.”

There are always different ways to be church, inside and comfortable or outside where it might be really challenging. Maybe this is the day the church needs to find its feet and its voice and shows practical allegiance to the Prince of Peace. 

A Lent quiet day on resourcing ourselves

I have just returned from leading a Lenten retreat for 16 people at Penhurst Retreat Centre, always a joy, but today especially as I arrived frazzled. I wrote the retreat yesterday and wondered how it would go - it went amazingly well and I have come back really refreshed. Good job as I have a Church Council in a couple of hours! I love the room I've put a picture of at the end of this writing. It has become a safe space for me. It is wonderful to sit here with companions for a day and reflect on God. We haven't mentioned church at all all day! I promised a friend I would put the day on the blog so she could do it at home. Others might find it helpful. We've been thinking about spiritual preparation, time out, being honest and facing the world. 

Session 1: Keeping a holy Lent – good preparation

We meet over half way through Lent. Lent is a time of preparation, and if done well, good preparation. I find some people in churches think ministers and vicars material for groups and worship and meetings appears by magic! Without good preparation time, we are sunk. Think about other occasions, performing a play, without lots of rehearsal the play will be full of wrong lines. Football matches – without training, without keeping fit, you will turn into Newcastle United. Without putting the route into the sat nav or looking at the map, you can get very lost.

Without making arrangements for a long holiday or time off from something, you might work something out when you get there, but often when you prepare early for a journey you can get a better deal than thinking about it at the last minute. I have a train ticket to Aberdeen in the summer for £71 return first class, booking early. If I turn up at Hastings station to go to London via Ashford for a 10am meeting tomorrow morning I will pay £79! Without practice for exams, revision, hard work, unless you are one of those people who could wing it and get an A, without that time you would fail. We can all think of times we haven’t prepared well, or taken enough time. 

There are seasons in the church year that are all about good spiritual preparation – Advent is one, and Lent is the other. I come from a denomination that does Advent appallingly. We start having nativity plays in church at the beginning of December and the Christmas tree goes up at the end of November. I come from a denomination that does Lent almost as appallingly too. We have Lent study groups in our Circuit. The turn out this year has been very very bad. We want to rush on to Christmas and we want Easter Sunday without Lenten examination and most certainly for some Good Friday. Why don’t churches take time to prepare well? Are we too busy or don’t we see the need to stop, rest, take time, think, listen, keep a moment holy. I hope today to convince you that keeping a holy Lent, or any period of time when we are about to go something big for God, needs a good quality time of preparation first. So we are going in three sessions to look at good preparation reflecting on our lives, good preparation being honest with God, and good preparation walking into Holy Week with Jesus. It is my conviction that the Church would be a better place if we did more of this, taking some preparation time, having some space, being open with God intensively, when the reality of the world then comes we might have better resources. 

Reading: Luke 4: 1 – 13, then 14 – 15

Did Jesus keep a holy Lent? Did Jesus prepare well? Notice that in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is LED by the Spirit into the desert – a time of testing, vulnerability, searching, working things out. Notice that at the end of the first bit, the hard times, the things that are difficult, we don’t want to face, will come back. Notice in the second bit, he has energy after his time of preparation.        

The Church used to give us a spiritual ear bashing in Lent (and Advent if you do the Advent readings about judgement properly)

Perhaps we are not led into wilderness and desert here but there are times we are led into a place where we don’t know what to do, and we need to think before we act. Perhaps we need to stop and be still before God before moving on. We need time to consider our options before we make them. Perhaps we need like Jesus to be led into these times. A man began work in a high powered job with IBM. His desk in the office was by a window with a wonderful view of delightful countryside. His new boss came to meet with him on his first day. Imagine the new employees surprise when he was told, “I want you to stop whatever you are doing every night at 4.30pm, make a cup of tea and stare out of that window for half an hour before you leave at 5.” Apparently, the employee’s best thinking was done in those half hours and productivity the next morning was high. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for a necessary time of breathing, adapting to the call, to assess, before he could make any decisions.

In a silence you might like to think about these two quotes. What is stopping you coping with your thing coming up? What do you need to let go off in order to prepare more? How do you have more times discerning the holy?   

1. From a Benedictine website suggesting we might write a Lent Bill, a list of things we might do to be kind to ourselves: 

“The point of the Lent Bill is that it gives us an opportunity to think about our personal Lent, as distinct from our community observance. Each of us takes stock of her life and thinks about what needs to be addressed. For one, it may be a tendency to talk too much; for another, it may be a tendency to avoid engagement with people; a casualness may have crept into our lectio divina; or we may have noticed ourselves daydreaming or half-hearted or otherwise deficient in our service. The chances are that the same faults and weaknesses will appear year after year on our Lent Bills, because human nature does not change very much. What matters is the love and devotion with which we try to put right some of the negligence of other times.

If you do a quick internet search, you will find many sites offering advice about how to make your Lent more fruitful. Over the next few days, I shall be offering my own ha’pennorth. Today, may I give you just one pointer? The classical penances of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. For most people, that means taking on more prayer, giving up some food or drink and performing some act of charity or benevolence. These are all good, but do please bear in mind that merely giving something up (e.g. wine or television) shouldn’t result in a vacuum — money or time saved is meant to be spent on God and others; dieting is not fasting; and prayer is more than just saying prayers.

We can make our Lent so busy with different ‘practices’ that we ignore or even subvert its point. Lent is meant to open us to the mystery of God’s love and redemption. It is worth spending some time preparing for it; and one of the best of all ways is to reflect on your life and, if you belong to the Catholic tradition, make your confession and ask God’s help to see what you REALLY need to change”.

2. Think about your church and her priorities: Jesus after a period of good preparation and thinking decides to be distinctive. We are commissioned to be different. What do you make of this quote from the American preacher Fred Craddock? 

“Jesus survives the test in the desert and moves into ministry in Galilee. He did not use the power of the Spirit to claim exemption or to avoid the painful difficulties of the path of service. He did not use God to claim something for himself.

And it was this serving, suffering, dying Jesus whom God vindicated by raising him from the dead. A church too fond of power, place and claims would do well to walk in his steps.”

Session 2: Keeping a Holy Lent: Being honest with ourselves

Reading: Matthew 26: 36 – 40

I think Lent is a time of soul searching. So often the world wants to turn us into something that we are not, it wants to destroy us because we are not who they want us to be. Christian leaders are not strangers to that happening! Destroying people is almost a sport. Jesus had a time working out who he was and was confronted with “perhaps you are not” “do it our way” “don’t make demands on us” “leave us alone”

There are other times we don’t want to be honest how we feel. We say “I am fine” when asked. Methodist ministers in our District from the 1^st March have begun to have compulsory formal supervision sessions to be accountable and to be supported better. In them you have to talk and open up. It might be hard to be honest. I've had professional counselling in my past – twice – it is not easy baring your soul, but you can only be put back together after you have named what is going on. I find this reading in Lent during Jesus last days extremely helpful about honesty and helping us get nearer to the holiness of God in being honest. What is Jesus honest about here? Sorrow in his heart. He wants good friends to be with him in the pain. They fall asleep. Then the rawness of humanity “Father if it is possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet not what I want but want you want.” It’s okay to be honest about what God is calling you to do and be – it’s okay to say hang on a minute…   

I find this part of Scripture a comfort and a challenge. Comfort because it is good to know Jesus had to struggle to obey his Father sometimes like we do! I feel closer to Jesus because of these words. Challenge because in the end Jesus submits to his Father’s will.

He was able to voice his pain and his confusion, he asks for the suffering to go – but he knows he has come to do God’s will and expresses this amazing sentence of faith and trust in the middle of pain and dread of what is to come. “Yet not I want, but what you want.” He surrenders, he obeyed, he chose God’s will because he loved him, because he knew that God loved him. I guess if we know we are loved by God, we can be confident that even if we struggle, all will be well, we are safe in God’s hands. The thing we struggle with is having the courage to go forward and be in the place God wants us to be. I am at the moment hearing God’s voice saying something quite clearly to me over and over again about the future. I am not yet prepared to trust what I am hearing, so I keep coming back to him in my prayer conversation, offering him alternative options to check it out. In the end, yet not my will, but yours, will prevail. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray don’t we, your Kingdom come, your will be done. Not ours. We seek first God’s Kingdom, not our narrow concerns. Sometimes though that can be hard.

Are we good at some honest Lenten prayer time? Do we talk to God and say exactly how we feel? Have a go at writing a honest prayer about something you face. Those of us who journal find that extremely liberating! 

In this silence, talk to God honestly about what is holding you back from trusting him? Wait for his answer. Have a go at being honest! Write a prayer which begins "Father, if it is possible..."

Final session: Keeping a Holy Lent – Being equipped enough to face life! 

Reading: Mark 14: 53 - 65 

Sometimes we need to find the holy in the midst of real life. We need to work out how to respond having prepared and found confidence to actually get on with the challenge or the thing we are worrying about. Jesus third time of searching, discerning, thinking is while on trial.

Rowan Williams makes these points in the book Christ On Trial.

•          We see here a senseless nightmare. “We are going to die, but are denied the satisfaction of knowing why.”

•          Jesus breaks the silence of the Gospel at the trial ( Mark’s Messianic Secret)

•          Mark is saying we have to accept the present as a church and work with it.

None of us like confrontation – we like to have a life that is calm and with few demands. But sometimes we need to stand up and face the world’s court and take that world on. Can we like our Lord, stand there and when people say “Are you a Christian?” say, “ I am!” Where have you seen examples of people carrying on because of their faith and their love, even when it seems useless in the world’s eyes?

In a final silence ask yourself having taken time out, do I feel better equipped to face my “thing” – Have I found what I need? Can I draw on it when I am doing what I need to do? Can I celebrate Easter having been through a holy Lent? 

Can we find Jesus easier having seen how he prepares, is honest, and stands in the world as it is?

In the end Lent is pointless if it doesn’t change us. This day will have been a wasted opportunity if we aren’t different at the end of it. Easter will not be complete without Good Friday. 

I hope my retreat people found today helpful and those of you doing it on line now. I cannot though reproduce on line the apple pie and custard and endless coffee, sadly!  

My Mothering Sunday thoughts - being balanced with all of humanity in the pew

I think for a worship leader Mothering Sunday is one of the most difficult to get right. I had two services this morning, one in an Anglican village church and the other in my church in Rye. I am always conscious as a worship leader, you never know who is out there, and that worship if it is to touch people has to meet people where they are with good news. Many people find this day too awful to come to church to be confronted with flowers and families. Others quite rightly want to celebrate. There are some nightmare stories of the giving out of flowers and the basket going round again if there are flowers left over for women who are barren! There are cards I know are sent today to childless women "from the cat." A bit of fun? Perhaps not.    

I chose this morning to concentrate on biblical mothers and what they teach us. And to remind folk to be open to the mothering love of God. How far I hope we have come from the launch of the 1999 Methodist Worship Book when a small group came to me in disgust when I used the fabulous liturgy which has in it "God our Father and our Mother"...         

We thought about Eve, the mother of Cain and Abel – and we remembered she would bury one of her children – and that her other child was a murderer – Abel murdered his brother Cain, and he was a bit of a nightmare “am I my brother’s keeper?” We paused to remember parents who have lost children today. I am conscious of many young people who go missing. I am also conscious this week is the 20th anniversary of the shootings in Dunblane. I remember leading worship on the Sunday after that tragedy, and which church I was in - Smithy Bridge Methodist Church in Littleborough. How must it be for parents to wave their children into school and never see them again?  

We thought about Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. We remembered John the Baptist who went off into the desert to live in some sort of commune we think. How did Elizabeth feel? We paused to remember parents who are surprised that they are having children, the sudden pregnancy test, and parents whose children leave home, which is always hard for the parent, but even worse when children lose contact. 

We thought about Sarah, the mother of Isaac. We remembered Sarah was very elderly when she was told she is going to have a son. How does she react? She laughes. Sarah helps us remember that motherhood isn’t easy. How did she react when Abraham takes Isaac up a mountain to sacrifice him? How did she react travelling from what she knew to a country that was God knows where? We remember parents who are struggling today to keep their children safe, on arduous journeys, as refugees. When children are sprayed with teargas across the channel a few miles from where we were worshipping this morning (on a clear day from the cliffs near here you can see the French coast), what sort of world do we live in?   

We thought about Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. After the death of husbands in a foreign land, Naomi tells Ruth to let her go and return home, but Ruth stays with her and they have an amazing bond. We paused to remember mothers in law – not all the butt of Les Dawson jokes, our extended family. 

We thought about Jochebed, the mother of Moses. To avoid the mass slaughter of Hebrew boys, she set her baby adrift in the Nile River, hoping someone would find him and raise him. God so worked that her baby was found by Pharaoh's daughter. Jochebed even became her own son's nurse. So we remember the sacrificial love of parents and carers of children today, often putting the child's welfare first, even when it hurts.

We thought about Mary, finally. Motherhood was not easy for Mary. When Jesus was born she was young, inexperienced and ostracised because of his conception. Her baby was born far from home in difficult and dangerous surroundings. When she took her son to the temple, only days old, Simeon’s prophecy for his future was both ominous and exciting. He prophesied that a sword would pierce her soul. She then lived as a refugee in a foreign land because the King wanted to kill her child.

Jesus was difficult as a child. At 12 year old he stopped behind in Jerusalem to discuss theology.

When he was older and his peers were getting married and having children, which was obligatory, Jesus did not. It could not have been easy for Mary to have Jesus being single and still living at home. His public ministry alienated him from his family as well as the religious leaders. Mary had to learn to put her own feelings to one side to support him in his mission. Finally, she suffered the worst thing that can happen to a mother, she had to watch her son die a long, painful, tortuous death.

But Mary was there. Supporting her son, no doubt with many emotions and thoughts racing around.

We think Mary would have been at most about 48 at the cross.

Perhaps biblical mothers show us something of a love that costs, accepts, and sometimes hurts. Perhaps all the mothers in the bible and those who care for others at their best, show us something of the love of God, caring and nurturing, and yes, hurting when we get it wrong or there is indescribable pain.      

   

And therefore we need a day when we remember not just Mums, but mothering and those who in God’s name care for us and we need a day when we stop and remember the nurturing care of God. 

I chose to end the reflection this morning with Mother Julian, who reminds us of God's embrace, whether we are parents, whether we have lost children, whether we wanted children and could have them, whether we choose not to have children and a day like today leaves us out. In service one this morning there were loads of flowers left over. I wondered if some men might get some. We did not. Do we give fathers a gift in June in church? What about having in church a single is fine Sunday, or a divorced people are fine Sunday - I wonder what gift I would get??! 

On a Sunday I found hard to prepare for and deliver the wise deep thinkers words remind me of the all encompassing love of God, whose care and concern are beyond measure:

"It is a characteristic of God to overcome evil with good. Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him ­ and this is where His Maternity starts ­ And with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never ceases to surround us.  Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.  And He showed me this truth in all things, but especially in those sweet words when He says:“It is I”. As if to say,  I am the power and the Goodness of the Father, I am the Wisdom of the Mother, I am the Light and the Grace which is blessed love, I am the Trinity, I am the Unity, I am the supreme Goodness of all kind of things, I am the One who makes you love, I am the One who makes you desire, I am the never-ending fulfilment of all true desires. (...) Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is ‘Being’, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through his marvellous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Saviour. It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates and our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank him reverently and to praise him for having created us and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Ghost, to obtain help and grace. I then saw with complete certainty that God, before creating us, loved us, and His love never lessened and never will. In this love he accomplished all his works, and in this love he oriented all things to our good and in this love our life is eternal. With creation we started but the love with which he created us was in Him from the very beginning and in this love is our beginning. And all this we shall see it in God eternally." From “Revelations of Divine Love”